It is a common practice to protect printed circuit boards from damage caused due to overload current by installing or mounting a fuse assembly on the board. For safety reasons, the fuse assembly is usually installed in a fuse holder and the fuse holder is mounted on, or snapped onto the board.
In a copending application of the present inventor entitled "Single Position Flat Mount Fuse Holder", there is described a fuse holder for flat mounting on the edge of a printed circuit board. The fuse holder described in said application is a single position, i.e., holds one fuse assembly, and is designed to be mounted on the edge of the PCB in order to minimize the space requirement of the fuse holder--PCB assembly. Consequently, the fuse holder described therein is uniquely suitable for use in miniaturized electronic devices. One of the problems with that fuse holder, however, is the limitation on the number of fuse holders which can be mounted on a given surface of the PCB. This, in turn, limits the current density of the fuse holder--PCB assembly since the current density is limited by the number of fuse assemblies which are employed. In order to increase the current density per given surface area of the PCB, additional fuse assemblies must be utilized per given surface area of the PCB.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a fuse holder which due to its unique construction affords increased current density of fuse holder--PCB assembly.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a fuse holder which is of piggyback construction and dual position so as the accommodate two fuse assemblies per fuse holder.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a dual position piggyback fuse holder which can be securely and rigidly mounted on the edge surface of the PCB due to the unique design and construction of the fuse holder.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a fuse holder having contact pins which are coterminous in order to facilitate insertion of the pins into corresponding apertures in the PCB surface.
The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the present fuse holders will be more clearly appreciated from the ensuing detailed description and the accompanying drawings.